TravelTime Location API
TravelTime vs.
Mapbox
Looking for a Mapbox API alternative? Explore how TravelTime compares to Mapbox location APIs, so you can make an informed decision when choosing your journey time and location intelligence provider.
Compare TravelTime vs. Mapbox on pricing, privacy, coverage, and features — and make an informed decision today.
TLDR: Our overview
- Mapbox and TravelTime are both powerful location technology platforms — but they serve very different purposes.
- Mapbox excels in mapping and visualisation. It is built for developers creating interactive, design-rich maps with custom basemaps, SDKs, and dynamic styling. It’s ideal for front-end apps, navigation, and UI experiences. However, the usage-based pricing structure gets expensive at scale.
- TravelTime focuses on what happens beyond the map.
- It’s built for analysing real-world movement, with accurate, multimodal journey time data across public transport, walking, cycling, and driving. TravelTime is built for use at scale, with no call or licensing restrictions, and one fixed price.
What’s the difference between TravelTime and Mapbox?
TravelTime and Mapbox both operate in the location technology space, yet they serve different purposes. The differences between them can have a major impact on your decision-making, depending on your use case.
| Feature |  |  |
|---|---|---|
| USP | Unlimited API usage for one fixed price, public transport data and high-quality support as standard | Visual maps with customisation and strong front-end SDKs |
| Countries coverage | Global coverage (excl. China, Russia, North Korea) | North America, Western Europe, Middle East, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Australia |
| Privacy | No data collection or tracking | Customer data will be sent to Mapbox without restriction |
| Licensing | Freedom to cache data, use in AI modelling, and more | Customers cannot perform bulk or automated queries, nor scrape, cache or download map content |
| Pricing model | Unlimited API usage for one fixed price | PAYG - volume-based pricing |
USP
Countries coverage
Privacy
Licensing
Pricing model
TravelTime or Mapbox?
Distance Matrix comparison
Usage limits, response details, and more
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
Max. matrix size | 10 x 100,000 | 25 x 25 |
Performance | Calculate 100,000 elements in 120 milliseconds, with no rate limit | 60 requests per minute |
Pricing | One fixed custom price for unlimited API requests | Starting from $2 per 1,000 elements |
Support | Included in all licences | Minimum $6,000 / year |
Caching availability |
| Not supported |
Travel times |
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Distances |
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Driving |
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Walking |
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Cycling |
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Public transport |
| Not supported |
HGV | Not supported | Not supported |
Multi-modal |
| Not supported |
Live traffic | Not supported |
|
Time of the day |
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|
Plugins | ElasticSearch, Solr, Snowflake, ESRI, Alteryx, QGIS | Unknown |
TravelTime or Mapbox?
Isochrone comparison
Usage limits, transport modes, and more
| Feature | | |
|---|---|---|
Rate limit | Unlimited | 300 requests per minute |
Pricing | One fixed custom price for unlimited API requests | $2 per 1,000 isochrones (volume discounts) |
Support | Included in all licences | Minimum $6,000 / year |
Caching availability |
| Not supported |
Driving |
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|
Walking |
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Cycling |
|
|
Public transport |
| Not supported |
HGV | Not supported | Not supported |
Multi-modal |
| Not supported |
Isochrone outputs | JSON, GeoJSON, H3, Geohash | GeoJSON |
Intersections |
| Not supported |
Unions |
| Not supported |
Detail configuration |
|
|
Live traffic | Not supported |
|
Time of the day |
|
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Maximum travel time | 4 hr | 1 hr |
Plugins | ElasticSearch, Solr, Snowflake, ESRI, Alteryx, QGIS | Alteryx |
Isochrone shape detail
Compare driving isochrones in New York, USA by Mapbox and TravelTime
Mapbox shows a broad area based on where you can travel through within a set time—regardless of whether you can actually stop there.
It includes highways, bridges, and tunnels, even if they don’t lead to accessible destinations. The result is an overestimated catchment area that doesn’t reflect reality.
TravelTime can be configured to only include areas that are truly reachable i.e. where a journey can actually end.
Unlike Mapbox, it excludes roads and routes where stopping isn’t possible, such as mid-bridge or highway stretches.
This results in more accurate catchment areas that reflect real-world accessibility.
Mapbox shows a broad area based on where you can travel through within a set time—regardless of whether you can actually stop there.
It includes highways, bridges, and tunnels, even if they don’t lead to accessible destinations. The result is an overestimated catchment area that doesn’t reflect reality.
TravelTime vs. Mapbox:
Transparent pricing that scales
With TravelTime, you pay a flat fee for unlimited usage. No hidden fees, no surprise bills.
Mapbox charges per API call, which can lead to unpredictable and escalating costs, especially as your product and customer base grows.
- Fixed cost per year
- Unlimited API calls
- No quotas or throttling
- Pay-per-use pricing
- Steep increases at scale
- Rate limiting and quotas apply
TravelTime vs. Mapbox
public transit
TravelTime supports global transit data, including driving routes, rail networks, cycling routes, metro systems, regional buses, and national carriers.
Mapbox does not offer any public transit data coverage.
Comparing TravelTime vs.
Mapbox drive time accuracy
Both TravelTime and Mapbox can integrate driving times into your location-based application. However, Mapbox is often the outlier when running a comparison against the major location technology players.
TravelTime’s dedicated data team continuously test and update the algorithms to deliver the most accurate results possible.
Enter two addresses to calculate the drive time.
Drive times calculated using a 12pm midweek departure time (where possible based on each provider). For more details see comparison code.
TravelTime: Privacy
you can trust
Data is never collected, stored, or sold. We focus purely on delivering travel time analytics. No advertising, no building competitor products.
Mapbox states that customer data can be sent to Mapbox without any restrictions. That doesn’t sound good.
TravelTime or
Mapbox?
Real support from day one
TravelTime supports you every step of the way.
Get personalised onboarding, developer documentation tailored to your use case, and access to real humans — not just forums and FAQs.
Switch to TravelTime
Try TravelTime, a Mapbox alternative, built for accurate data and scalability.
It’s the first location API provider to promote fair, non-transactional pricing, making it a great choice for large enterprise and high-growth businesses.
Fixed price, unlimited usage
Larger travel time matrices
Best-in-class accuracy
TravelTime and Mapbox
Location API FAQs
Yes! TravelTime offers a developer-friendly, privacy-first alternative to Mapbox, particularly for travel time analysis and location-based applications. TravelTime is perfect for organisations that are scaling location API usage rapidly and face large, unpredictable bills with Google.
Absolutely. TravelTime’s Distance Matrix API works across all transport modes and is designed for high-volume usage at a fixed cost.
TravelTime integrates into any app where location plays an important part of any process on the end-user or customer site. It is ideal for:
- Site selection
- Commute analysis
- Logistics and service areas
- Accessibility mapping
- Real estate and retail analytics
- Matching on online marketplaces, for example, property portals and job boards
Build without compromise
Get started with the leading location API today